Mormon Women Projecthttps://www.mormonwomen.com
Exploring the many ways LDS women choose the right.Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:50:39 +0000en-UShourly1Exploring the many ways LDS women choose the right.Mormon Women ProjectExploring the many ways LDS women choose the right.Mormon Women Projecthttps://www.mormonwomen.com/wp-content/plugins/powerpress/rss_default.jpghttps://www.mormonwomen.com
PODCAST: Mother’s Milk, Poems in Search of Heavenly Motherhttps://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/09/mothers-milk-poems-search-heavenly-mother/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/09/mothers-milk-poems-search-heavenly-mother/#respondTue, 12 Sep 2017 14:25:50 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7929In this episode, Meredith Nelson interviews Rachel Hunt Steenblik about her recently published book, Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother, illustrated by Ashley May Hoiland. Rachel talks about the fading taboo of talking about Heavenly Mother, about her own research and personal searching regarding Mother in Heaven, and about the lovely small poems she wrote […]

]]>In this episode, Meredith Nelson interviews Rachel Hunt Steenblik about her recently published book, Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother, illustrated by Ashley May Hoiland. Rachel talks about the fading taboo of talking about Heavenly Mother, about her own research and personal searching regarding Mother in Heaven, and about the lovely small poems she wrote to illuminate this searching.

]]>https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/09/mothers-milk-poems-search-heavenly-mother/feed/0In this episode, Meredith Nelson interviews Rachel Hunt Steenblik about her recently published book, Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother, illustrated by Ashley May Hoiland. Rachel talks about the fading taboo of talking about Heavenly Mot...In this episode, Meredith Nelson interviews Rachel Hunt Steenblik about her recently published book, Mother’s Milk: Poems in Search of Heavenly Mother, illustrated by Ashley May Hoiland. Rachel talks about the fading taboo of talking about Heavenly Mother, about her own research and personal searching regarding Mother in Heaven, and about the lovely small poems she wrote […]Mormon Women Project53:55Responsibility for the Young Womenhttps://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/responsibility-for-the-yw/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/responsibility-for-the-yw/#respondSun, 20 Aug 2017 01:22:17 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7879Women At Church stories are submitted by church members and shared anonymously. I had served as the Primary President for about 6 months when a new Young Women’s President was called. She joined us in Ward Council where a a discussion took place about which priesthood quorum’s turn it was to walk the sisters from […]

]]>Women At Church stories are submitted by church members and shared anonymously.

I had served as the Primary President for about 6 months when a new Young Women’s President was called. She joined us in Ward Council where a a discussion took place about which priesthood quorum’s turn it was to walk the sisters from the assisted living facility next door to the church building. Our ward rotated this responsibility each month between the High Priests Group, Elder’s Quorum, and Young Men’s quorums. The next month, the Young Women were added to the rotation. As I pulled into the church parking lot that week, I couldn’t help but smile as I saw the sweet young women in our ward visiting cheerfully with these sisters as they pushed their wheelchairs down the street to church. They were blessed by an opportunity to serve and by their leader’s ability to recognize the opportunity.

]]>https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/responsibility-for-the-yw/feed/0PODCAST: Women At Church, Part 2https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/women-church-part-2/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/women-church-part-2/#commentsWed, 16 Aug 2017 02:23:22 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7866Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1, Neylan talks about some of the challenges we currently grapple with as church members when it comes to gender relations. In Part […]

]]>Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1, Neylan talks about some of the challenges we currently grapple with as church members when it comes to gender relations. In Part 2, she outlines some creative solutions, and her hopes for the future of the Relief Society.

Guest Bio:Neylan McBaine, a life-long Mormon, grew up in New York City and attended Yale University. She currently lives with her husband and three young daughters. In addition to founding the Mormon Women Project in 2010, Neylan is the author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact. Neylan is also the CEO of Better Days 2020, an organization dedicated to celebrating Utah’s women’s history by popularizing the past in creative and communal ways.

]]>https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/women-church-part-2/feed/1Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1,Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1, Neylan talks about some of the challenges we currently grapple with as church members when it comes to gender relations. In Part […]Mormon Women Project23:29PODCAST: Women At Church, Part 1https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/women-at-church/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/women-at-church/#respondWed, 16 Aug 2017 02:19:26 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7860Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1, Neylan talks about some of the challenges we currently grapple with as church members when it comes to gender relations. In Part […]

]]>Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1, Neylan talks about some of the challenges we currently grapple with as church members when it comes to gender relations. In Part 2, she outlines some creative solutions, and her hopes for the future of the Relief Society.

Guest Bio:Neylan McBaine, a life-long Mormon, grew up in New York City and attended Yale University. She currently lives with her husband and three young daughters. In addition to founding the Mormon Women Project in 2010, Neylan is the author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact. Neylan is also the CEO of Better Days 2020, an organization dedicated to celebrating Utah’s women’s history by popularizing the past in creative and communal ways.

]]>https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/08/women-at-church/feed/0Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1,Neylan McBaine, author of Women at Church: Magnifying LDS Women’s Local Impact (Greg Kofford Books, 2014), joins Meredith Nelson to discuss her book and her additional perspectives and experiences since its publication. In Part 1, Neylan talks about some of the challenges we currently grapple with as church members when it comes to gender relations. In Part […]Mormon Women Project43:16At the Same Tablehttps://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/05/at-the-same-table/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/05/at-the-same-table/#respondMon, 15 May 2017 01:21:14 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7743Women At Church stories are submitted by church members and shared anonymously. Last year, I enjoyed being a part of the Gospel Essentials class in our ward. Before I was called to be a teacher in the Primary, I attended this Sunday School class regularly. We met in a room with a long table around […]

]]>Women At Church stories are submitted by church members and shared anonymously.

Last year, I enjoyed being a part of the Gospel Essentials class in our ward. Before I was called to be a teacher in the Primary, I attended this Sunday School class regularly. We met in a room with a long table around which we all could gather and discuss, as a group of about 10 or less. Men and women of all ages sat at that high council table, discussing the gospel topic of the day. My husband and I worked to base comments off of scripture, and clarify doctrine as needed. I appreciated being able to learn from other opinions and respectfully disagree about some things. It brought a humbling spirit of learning and growth when people were thoughtful- not defensive or dismissive.

]]>https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/05/at-the-same-table/feed/0PODCAST: At the Pulpithttps://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/05/podcast-at-the-pulpit/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/05/podcast-at-the-pulpit/#respondSun, 14 May 2017 19:12:52 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7739In this episode, Jenny Reeder and Kate Holbrook join us to talk about women’s authority, titles, words, themes, and experiences across church history. They are the editors of At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Dicsourses of Latter-Day Saint Women, recently published by the Church Historian’s Press. The book has a dedicated webpage, including additional discourses […]

]]>In this episode, Jenny Reeder and Kate Holbrook join us to talk about women’s authority, titles, words, themes, and experiences across church history. They are the editors of At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Dicsourses of Latter-Day Saint Women, recently published by the Church Historian’s Press. The book has a dedicated webpage, including additional discourses which the editors were not able to include in the printed volume.

Jenny Reeder is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist for the LDS Church History Department, where she recently co-edited Át the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses of Latter-day Saint Women with Kate Holbrook and the Church Historian’s Press. Other recent publications include The Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies from the Restoration, co-edited with Janiece Johnson. She earned her PhD in American History at George Mason University, emphasizing women’s history, religious history, memory, and material culture.

Kate Holbrook, PhD is Managing Historian of the Women’s History Team at the LDS Church History Department, where she studies the ways Mormons make meaning and make history. She is co-editor of The First Fifty Years of Relief Society: Key Documents in Latter-day Saint Women’s History, Women and Mormonism: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, and At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-day Saint Women. Her dissertation, Radical Food: Nation of Islam and Latter-day Saint Culinary Ideals: 1930-1980, explores the everyday theological priorities carried in food, and she received the first Eccles Fellowship in Mormon Studies at the University of Utah for that work.

]]>https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/05/podcast-at-the-pulpit/feed/0In this episode, Jenny Reeder and Kate Holbrook join us to talk about women’s authority, titles, words, themes, and experiences across church history. They are the editors of At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Dicsourses of Latter-Day Saint Women,In this episode, Jenny Reeder and Kate Holbrook join us to talk about women’s authority, titles, words, themes, and experiences across church history. They are the editors of At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Dicsourses of Latter-Day Saint Women, recently published by the Church Historian’s Press. The book has a dedicated webpage, including additional discourses […]Mormon Women Project47:19PODCAST: The Witness of Womenhttps://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/04/the-witness-of-women/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/04/the-witness-of-women/#commentsSat, 29 Apr 2017 02:00:32 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7710Janiece Johnson and Jenny Reeder joined us in March to discuss the experiences and distinct voices of women in the early days of the Restoration. They share anecdotes from church history you may never have heard before, and discuss the importance of knowing the stories of LDS women, and hearing their testimonies. Together, Johnson and […]

]]>Janiece Johnson and Jenny Reeder joined us in March to discuss the experiences and distinct voices of women in the early days of the Restoration. They share anecdotes from church history you may never have heard before, and discuss the importance of knowing the stories of LDS women, and hearing their testimonies. Together, Johnson and Reeder recently authored The Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies from the Restoration, which we discuss in this interview. (Read the MWP review here).

Janiece Johnson is a transplanted Bay Area, California native who loves history, design, art, good food, and traveling. She has master’s degrees in American Religious History and Theology from Brigham Young University and Vanderbilt’s Divinity School respectively. She finished her doctoral work at the University of Leicester in England. Janiece has published work in gender and religious history—specializing in Mormon history and the prosecution for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. She is currently a visiting professor of Religion at Brigham Young University-Idaho.

Jenny Reeder is the nineteenth-century women’s history specialist for the LDS Church History Department, where she recently co-edited Át the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses of Latter-day Saint Women with Kate Holbrook and the Church Historian’s Press. She earned her PhD in American History at George Mason University, emphasizing women’s history, religious history, memory, and material culture.

]]>https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/04/the-witness-of-women/feed/1Janiece Johnson and Jenny Reeder joined us in March to discuss the experiences and distinct voices of women in the early days of the Restoration. They share anecdotes from church history you may never have heard before,Janiece Johnson and Jenny Reeder joined us in March to discuss the experiences and distinct voices of women in the early days of the Restoration. They share anecdotes from church history you may never have heard before, and discuss the importance of knowing the stories of LDS women, and hearing their testimonies. Together, Johnson and […]Mormon Women Project46:16A Woman At Churchhttps://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/04/a-woman-at-church/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/04/a-woman-at-church/#commentsWed, 12 Apr 2017 16:24:06 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7651Last Sunday in fast and testimony meeting, a woman who had recently moved to our ward got up and talked about how difficult her transition had been to a new city. Her depression, which she has struggled with since her brother passed away sixteen years ago, has been at its worst of late — sometimes […]

]]>Last Sunday in fast and testimony meeting, a woman who had recently moved to our ward got up and talked about how difficult her transition had been to a new city. Her depression, which she has struggled with since her brother passed away sixteen years ago, has been at its worst of late — sometimes she struggles with the will to live. But she testified of the Savior’s Atonement, and how it gives her hope, and carries her. It is a reason for living.

Another young woman stood up and called on us all never to give up. She was rejected from the college of her choice, and felt devastated. But in a surge of determination, she appealed her application, and after a great deal of work and several months of waiting, she received an acceptance letter. Tears streamed down her face as she exhorted us to be diligent and believing.

A high-school aged young man, not yet a member of the church, stood and in simple yet bold terms, bore testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon. I could almost see the fire in his bones.

In Sunday School, we had a vibrant discussion about Joseph Smith. One brother raised his hand with a comment about personal revelation that had me nodding and mm-hmm-ing. Another brother raised his hand to make a comment with which I disagreed. I listened to his perspective, considered where he might be right, and continued to disagree.

I arrived at Relief Society late, having spent some time in the mother’s room with my distracted nine-month-old nursing baby. I wish I knew what I’d missed, because when I walked in, energy was springing around the room; the instructor’s eyes were flashing with joy as she asked real and challenging questions. “Where do you derive your authority as a woman?” “When have you used your authority?” She quoted Lucy Mack Smith, from the Church Historian’s Press’s recent book At the Pulpit, about “braiding sources of authority.” Two sisters in the room shared experiences about praying over their sick children, and lying by their sides to bless them. Several sisters cited our early Mormon foremothers as sources of authority, noting how they blessed the sick, how they were proactive in preaching and farsighted in providing for the needy. The instructor quoted Sister Jutta Busche: “I have tried to be like someone else. I have failed each time…. When I tried to conform, it blocked me [from] being transformed by the Spirit’s renewing of my mind.” I never spoke a word, but Words flew fast as lightning from my heart to my head and back again, crying “true! true!”

One woman bore her testimony at the end of the Relief Society meeting, about how she is trying to find her purpose, now that her children are almost grown and she feels like she has accomplished her major life goals. She was seeking and testifying in the same breath. Another woman stood after her, with great effort, and said “I wish these meetings could be shorter because sitting so long makes me stiff and sore.” She followed with an affirmation that God is real.

During the meeting, several charts and sign-up sheets came my way. On one of them, sisters wrote their names, numbers, and in what ways they are available to offer compassionate service. “Anything!” “Meals and rides.” “Baby-sitting.” “Postpartum support.” “Anything!” “Everything!” The women behind me snatched my squirmy baby from me so I had room to write, and played with her for the remainder of the meeting. (I love every roll of her squishy body, but whenever my arms are free of her I feel like I could take flight).

When I got to the car, my husband was buckling my five-year-old into the seat. (His primary teachers had spent half the hour with his class outside, identifying and picking flowers while they talked about promises). I couldn’t restrain the exclamation, “I feel so full of love I could explode.”

This was a particularly good week at church, but I wouldn’t call it a one-off thing. I love going to church. I love witnessing people’s hearts spill out their mouths in testimony meeting and in Sunday school comments. I love seeing women and men approach unfamiliar faces and shake hands. I love knowing that half of us disagree with the other half politically and scripturally, and in ten other ways. But we sit together, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes impassioned, sometimes silent, and we return to sit together again the next week. I love those lists of names and numbers — the stream of giving never runs dry. I love gathering to hear and discuss the words of the scriptures, of church leaders, of the Spirit to our own hearts. I love the communion with God, but above all I love the communion with his children.

I yearn for us as a people to achieve a perfect Zion. I yearn for Zion in my own heart. I believe we will continue to stumble as we steer our wagon train that way — just because the rocks and ruts are there. I will continue to lift when others fall, and to lean on the strong when I am weary. I’ll continue to envision the Savior yoked to me, and to all of us, as we walk and walk and walk.

But I tell you, when I scan the room on Sunday, I see the pure in heart. I see failure and struggle, blindness and weakness. But collectively, something like purity of heart, something like Zion, is settling among us and rising to the rafters.

]]>https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/04/a-woman-at-church/feed/1Equality is not the Endhttps://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/04/equality-not-end/
https://www.mormonwomen.com/2017/04/equality-not-end/#commentsTue, 04 Apr 2017 22:49:48 +0000https://www.mormonwomen.com/?p=7616Every talk touched me this conference. There isn’t one I would have done away with. In the wake of many flurried conversations over there being only a single female speaker last weekend, I give the benefit of the doubt to those planning the conference sessions. There are many more male leaders than female leaders in […]

]]>Every talk touched me this conference. There isn’t one I would have done away with.

In the wake of many flurried conversations over there being only a single female speaker last weekend, I give the benefit of the doubt to those planning the conference sessions. There are many more male leaders than female leaders in the church, and some disproportion in General Conference is therefore to be expected (though speakers could also be drawn from the RS, YW, and Primary General Boards). Perhaps the choice to eliminate one female speaker was also impacted by the reorganization of two women-led auxiliaries. I am not offended at the final arrangement, as disorienting as it is that one to two female speakers is our norm when 54% of the church body is women. One month after the Church Historian’s Press released a collection of LDS women’s discourses, At The Pulpit, we are left with mixed messages about who belongs there.

I do wonder if we are living up to our privileges as a church. A single ten-minute female speaker in eight hours of general sessions suggests tokenism. If women are worth hearing from — if their insights, experiences, knowledge, and influence are important for the church as a whole — then they are worth hearing from in greater numbers. If a general session is not the place for women to share and exhort, then why does even one woman speak? I believe it is the place; it is the only time when men, women and children gather in global unity to listen.

I want to interject that equality between men and women is never the end itself. Equality would be an arbitrary goal. Equality is a means toward many good temporal ends, but the ultimate goal — the end goal of our existence — is to become like God (like our Heavenly Parents).

How would hearing from many more women in General Conference help church members to become like God?

It would help women believe in and claim their spiritual privileges. If my daughter grows up hearing and seeing women leaders in balance with men, she will not doubt that her influence, her knowledge, her message, her study and expertise in the Gospel is as needed as her brother’s (her brother won’t doubt it either). One would be right in suggesting that these motivating feelings can be accomplished in other ways. But the dearth of female speakers in conference is not a neutral thing. It is potentially an anti-message to all of the above. It might say that it is more important to listen to men than to women. It might say that women do not need to exhort, to teach, or to know as much as men. It might say to some members that women do not have authority to teach male audiences. It might limit our notion of the female Mormon experience and the female Mormon authority, which is not anywhere else so prominently and officially on display.

Seeing and hearing women at the pulpit sends a message: that women have Authority. When a young woman sets off on her mission, or to a far-away college, or begins her motherhood journey, she will more likely believe in her own authority if the church has held up women as authorities — not just in pictures, but in voice. Elder Nelson recently urged women “to speak up and speak out!” and Elder Christofferson instructed women to “apply our influence without fear or apology.” If we hear only one woman speak in a general session of conference, will we check ourselves before speaking out in our wards and communities? Will we think, “Am I the woman to speak on this issue?”

Seeing and hearing women at the pulpit asserts that women can and should expound the scriptures and exhort the church (as Emma, and “all,” are called to do in D&C 25). If your daughter grows up seeing plentiful examples of women preaching in balance with men, she will not doubt that her call to preach and expound — and her ability to understand — is as real as a man’s. This belief will drive her to study and interpret the scriptures, turning her heart to God and to goodness. This belief will motivate her to preach, purifying her heart through the love, grief, and discipline of discipleship.

Seeing and hearing women at the pulpit teaches us about the women in our congregations. As the number and variety of women speakers increases, we have the opportunity to recognize the diversity of Mormon women: diversity of expertise, diversity of life experience, diversity of gifts and of needs. Hearing from many women authorities (not just one who might be assumed to represent us all) broadens our notion of what a righteous Mormon woman can look like.

Seeing and hearing women at the pulpit, in balance with men, models a cooperative paradigm which we should mirror in our congregations and families, and which I believe is the pattern of heaven. In the cooperative paradigm, men and women work side by side, relying on each other, respecting each other, learning from each other and serving each other. The cooperative paradigm insists that for us to be like Jesus, we must all develop his attributes and gifts, and all be filled with his pure, powerful love. Nevertheless, under the cooperative paradigm it is understood that men and women do have different callings, spheres of influence, stewardships and gifts, but these overlap and intertwine in often surprising ways. Women standing behind the pulpit will not be expected to give the same talks as men — their life experiences, their spiritual intuition, and their approach to teaching are likely to be different. This is precisely why men need to hear from them. This is why women need to hear from each other in addition to men. When we learn how to learn from each other, to reason together, to empathize and mourn with each other, to yield to each other, to strive for each other, then perhaps we will be ready for the counsels of heaven.

Thousands of stories in delicate pointillism convey the grand picture of the Restoration. Remove the women’s voices and experiences — remove half the dots — and the image loses half its color, half its clarity. Include them, and our vision of our history expands, our understanding of modern Mormon women sharpens, and we have new potential to understand the course of our people’s future.

A recent and welcome momentum in Mormon Women’s history continues with the publication of The Witness of Women, by Janiece Johnson and Jennifer Reeder. Academic in methodology, the book is yet wonderfully accessible in presentation. Its introduction describes its audience as “Gospel Doctrine teachers, Young Men and Young Women teachers, religion professors, family history researchers, and church members in general.” Any of the above will find it a useful and approachable tool.

The Witness of Women is an unprecedented and long-overdue resource. It is not, as it states itself, a standard historical narrative. It is a collection of women’s experiences and testimonies from the early days of the Church, organized by topic for ease of use. (Yet when one reads cover to cover, the narrative becomes clear and Story is everywhere present.) The book includes eighteen topics, and many sub-topics, ranging from “Gifts of the Spirit” to “the Book of Mormon” to “Abrahamic Sacrifices.”

Our foremothers speak for themselves in this volume, with the authors providing minimal but helpful context by way of introduction to each excerpt. If I have one complaint about the book, it is that I yearned after reading each entry for more context. I wanted the hear more about Alice Merrill Horne, who served in the Utah Legislature and on the Relief Society board. I wanted to read Laura Farnsworth Owen’s “Defense Against the Various Charges that Have Gone Abroad.” I wanted to hear the rest of the story, when it was mentioned that Elizabeth Ann Whitney journeyed to the “Great West” of Ohio with “an adventurous spinster.” Of course none of these footnotes could feasibly fall within the scope of this volume, and their absence is in the end not a shortcoming of the book. On the contrary, it urges the reader onward to more exploration of the lives and words of these women.

This book is crowded with joy (Zina Diantha Huntington Young: “I pressed [the Book of Mormon] to my bosom in a rapture of delight, murmuring as I did so, ‘This is the truth, truth truth!’”), with yearning (Emma Smith: “I desire a fruitful, active mind”), with grief (Amanda Barnes Smith: “Yet was I there, all that long, dreadful night, with my dead and my wounded, and none but God as our physician and help”), with testimony (Elizabeth Jones Lewis: “I testify today more strongly than ever before that this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ in its power”), with wisdom (Mary Jane Crosby: “There is no end to the intelligence that might be gained by study, by reading, and by reflecting”), with agony (Emmeline B. Wells: “Oh I wish life were a dream, a vain delusive dream, but no, O no, it is an awful reality”), with hope (Temperance Bond Mack: “We have been sifted, and if we should be faithful, what remains will be so much better”), with exhortation (Mary Tyndale Baxter Ferguson: “Sisters, do we understand the honor and privileges that are bestowed upon us through the Holy Spirit and everlasting priesthood of God?”), and with instruction (Susa Young Gates: “A new angle on an old truth, a fresh facet turned on an understood fact, makes for intellectual elasticity”). Its hundreds of entries, from church leaders and from women whose names we may never have heard, illuminate the Restoration even as they cast light on our present condition as a church and as individuals. Modern women and men may seek guidance in our private lives as we navigate parenthood, education, work, and church membership, from these women who have gone before. Modern church members can establish ourselves more firmly in the truth, learn the realities of discipleship, and above all be filled with gratitude for the women who laid our foundation, co-laborers in the great work of Restoration which continues to unfold in our day.

We encourage and entreat every teacher and missionary and member to search the words of women. They are more than just half of our story — they are infinite in value.